NightWatch

For the Night of 19 July 2009

North Korea: A South Korean news outlet reported on 20 July that a leadership purge continues, aimed a facilitating Kim Chong-un’s eventual leadership. The report cited defector accounts that the purge is occurring but contained no details as to dates or individuals.

Pakistan: Security. The government is recruiting 25,000 retired Pakistan Army soldiers for police duty in Swat and Buner Districts to protect millions of displaced residents as they return home. “The idea is to triple the number of police stations and bolster the force above levels present before the Taliban drove them out. The extra manpower would serve as an additional shield against militants returning to launch raids or influence the population” according to Pakistani media.

“To quickly put more police on the ground, officials are turning to retired soldiers, who require less time to train and are less skittish about dangerous assignments. The strategy carries some risk given the differences between soldiering and police work.”

“Additional police recruitment is part of a larger effort to muster a 400,000-strong anti-militant force, according to a spokesman in the Ministry of Information.

Politics. Prime Minister Raza Gilani blamed India on 18 July for "interfering" in Baluchistan, Press Trust of India reported. Gilani said that the joint statement signed by him and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, reflects Pakistan's concerns over the "interference."

Afghanistan: CJCS Admiral Mullen, to his great credit, flew by helicopter to a remote village in the Tajik region to cut the ribbon for a new girls’ school and to hand out class materials. In this Muslim region, the Tajik elders and leaders allow six years of schooling for girls.

In the Pashtun provinces in the south and in the west, girls’ schools are burned to the ground by Pashtun Taliban regularly. No authority has the military capability to protect these schools.

In Tajik country, attitudes are different than in Pashtun country. The Tajik schools might survive. Not so in Pashtun country. Pashtun men apparently are intimidated deeply by the prospect that their women might become able to read a newspaper. That would make wives more literate than their husbands, apparently.

Panjshir Province -- a Tajik region -- remains the lone center of tranquility each month. Protecting the future of the young Tajik girls might be all that can be accomplished a year from now. See Tom Friedman’s article today in The Washington Post.

Admiral Mullen’s commitment to cultural change as shown by the risks he took is tonight’s good news. Somehow it seems that a US Ambassador or Charge ought to have been present as well. If they were present, they received no mention.

Turkey: Three people, including one soldier, were wounded in a mortar attack late 18 July by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants from across the Turkish border with Iraq, Today's Zaman reported 19 July, citing state-run Anatolia news agency. The attack occurred in Hakkari Province.

Expect the Turkish armed forces to retaliate in northern Iraq.

Somalia: Update. Al Shabaab announced that the two French hostages shall be tried under Quranic law. The announcement did not specify the charges against the men, the absence of which de-legitimates any trial by al Shabaab.

Al Shabaab leaders might not care, but if any of them are ever captured and put on trial, they would.

Mauritania: Update. The man who led the military coup that toppled Mauritania's first elected head of state last August has been declared the new president, the country's interior minister said, according to official statements and the BBC.

Former? General Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz won the presidential election on 18 July with 52.58% of the vote in provisional results. The majority percentage ensures that a runoff election will be unnecessary.

Challengers have called the results "prefabricated" and requested an inquiry into the election by the international community.

The man whose earlier coup set in motion the events that led to Saturday’s travesty, Colonel Val, also ran for office, but received no significant portion of the vote. The outcome is no surprise. Hence forth, the Presidential Guard --or the army -- is the de facto political opposition, not the members of parliament.

The Pakistan Army plays the same role in Pakistan. In these types of government systems, there exist two parties: the Army and the fractious civilians. The Army always gets what it wants.

Comment: The repetition of the practice of generals in African states taking power to avoid losing power or position is tiresomely boring. The words, political maturity and Mauritania used in the same sentence create an oxymoron.

Similarly, it is tiresome that nearly every Central American president with a socialist agenda thinks he has a right to change his country’s constitution so that he can stay in office indefinitely and become the national savior.

Readers, this is boring behavior. Correa, Chavez, Zelaya, Ortega, Morales: none of these men -- Morales might be an exception -- would have been elected had they been honest about their long term intentions to subvert their national constitutions so they could stay in office. All have used the forms of republican democracy to try to establish personal dictatorships. Their actions are an affront to the people who elected them, who seem to find out too late to protect their freedoms.

Honduras: The BBC and other international media misquoted Costa Rican President Arias’ comment about the danger of Honduras slipping into civil war. That comment was the least significant portion of the weekend developments and was a self-serving attempt to keep the parties talking in Costa Rica. How does it look for a Nobel-Laureate who fails to bring peace?

Two days of talks between emissaries of Zelaya and the interim government of Honduras failed to reach agreement. Zelaya apparently attempted to dictate terms, all of which were rejected by the interim government.

(Note to new analysts: an overthrown president, who is living on charity in a foreign country, has no credibility or leverage for dictating terms to the guys in charge in his home country. He is running a bluff because possession is 100% of legitimacy, relative to occupation of the presidential house. )

Zelaya's delegation in San Jose, Costa Rica, called an end to discussions after representatives of the interim government rejected a proposal by Arias that Zelaya return as president at the head of a "reconciliation" government ahead of early elections.

The proposed return of Zelaya was "unacceptable," according to the Honduran government delegation, Senor Carlos Lopez. Zelaya's top aide at the talks, Rixi Moncada, responded by saying: "We announce that this dialogue with the commission from the de facto regime... is finished."

Zelaya continues to issue ultimata with encouragement from Nicaragua and Venezuela. He lacks the moral courage to lead a revolution, as does Chavez. He will talk big, but will agree to continue negotiations because he has no options that do not involve personal risk of violence. He is not willing to risk death or physical harm.

Costa Rican President Arias has asked for more time for talks.

Meanwhile in Tegucigalpa, pro-Zelaya demonstrations have stopped … did the Venezuelan money for paid agitators dry up? If Chavez invested heavily in Zelaya, he has a poor return on investment thus far.

Mexico: Update. Federal soldiers setup roadblocks on 18 July on major highways in Michoacan State, Reuters reported. Troops searched vehicles for drugs after the government ordered 5,500 troops to deploy to the area. Mihoacan State is the home state of President Calderon and was the original test case for his practice of using the Army to fight … whatever he thinks it is fighting – drugs, prostitution, slavery, vigilante violence, etc.

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NightWatch confesses to a second bias that one of its unstated purposes is to show Readers that there is no reason for fear. People make crises; they are understandable by other people who can and will fix them. That idea might be translated into a slogan for NightWatch.

End of NightWatch for 19 July.